1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical apparatus including a medical instrument for photographing the inside of a body.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is well known, an endoscope as a medical instrument includes an image pickup apparatus. The endoscope is led into a body cavity of a patient and used for performing various inspections, various kinds of treatments, and the like for an affected area in the body using observation images photographed by the image pickup apparatus.
Examples of such an endoscope include an endoscope that is led into digestive organs such as the esophagus, the stomach, the large intestine, and the duodenum, which are luminal tracts in the body, from the anus or the mouth cavity and an endoscope that is led into the abdominal cavity penetrating through the body wall from the vicinity of the navel. In general, the endoscope has a long insertion portion. The insertion portion is inserted into the digestive tract or into the abdominal cavity.
In recent years, in order to reduce pain to a patient due to the insertion of the insertion portion, for example, capsule type medical devices disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-500110, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-73884, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-14634 are proposed.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-500110 discloses a delivery device that directly delivers a capsule device, which is a capsule type medical device, by holding the capsule device to a targeted position in the body cavity such as the stomach or the small intestine and discharging the capsule device.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-73884 discloses a technique for a protective device for a radio intra-subject information acquiring device that surrounds a pill, which is a capsule type endoscope, using a protective cap, which is a protective device, and suppresses careless radio wave radiation related to communication with an external device.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-14634 discloses a technique for a capsule placement medical device that places a capsule type endoscope in the body cavity and prevents the surface of a distal end portion cover housing of the capsule type endoscope with a dome-like hood section, which covers an entire observation field of view of the capsule type endoscope, to reduce the influence on observation as much as possible.